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<title>A Lesson on Lycanthropy by WriterJace</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29858985">A Lesson on Lycanthropy</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriterJace/pseuds/WriterJace'>WriterJace</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Based on my own experience, Gen, Hogwarts lesson, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), lycanthropy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 00:28:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>722</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29858985</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriterJace/pseuds/WriterJace</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Marauders' class learns about lycanthropy and Remus does not enjoy it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Lesson on Lycanthropy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He’d known this lesson was coming, and he’d been dreading it for a while. It was part of the curriculum, he knew that, and they had to cover it so anyone who didn’t regularly spend full moons as or with a werewolf knew at least the basics of lycanthropy. <br/>He knew all of that. <br/>It didn’t make the lesson any less uncomfortable, though. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been – Remus had imagined some horrific scenarios when left alone with his thoughts with no distraction for too long. Really, it was just all so damn uncomfortable, and in a way that was even worse than insults and slurs being flung around. If that had been the case, he knew the other Marauders would have fought back, tooth and nail, fang and claw, to defend werewolves in general in order to to defend him in particular. <br/>But that hadn’t happened, so instead the four of them were left no choice but to sit, quietly, and listen to the professor and pretend that all of this was news to them, the truths as well as the falsehoods they were told that lesson. Sirius huffed a few times at some of the wrong information, but fortunately managed to stay quiet. There was no way they could explain why he would know such minute details about lycanthropy without having ever met a werewolf in person. <br/>Remus stayed completely silent throughout the whole lesson. He was acutely aware of the fact that he kept shifting in his seat, and he looked around the room every now and then to check whether he was being watched. He left like they were all noticing his weird behaviour, and they knew.  They would look at him, see how nervous he was, and know. Remus felt like he was under everyone’s scrutiny, his friends who kept glancing over to him, the professor who suddenly seemed to have remembered just who was sitting in his class today, and the whole class. He moved to the front of his chair, then changed his mind and retook a more relaxed position. Where was he supposed to put his hands in a way that seemed natural? He lay them on the desk, then put them in his pockets, then crossed his arms in front of his chest. He felt just about ready to strange himself just to get out of this seat. </p>
<p>After the lesson ended, he barely remembered what had happened. He remembered little bits and pieces of what his professor had said, the odd word and phrase here and there.<br/>Mostly, though, he remembered memories. <br/>The teacher talking about the transfer of lycanthropy had taken him right back to that night when he was five years old, out after dark to go on the swing again and go as high as he could, all the way to the big, round moon in the sky above him. One of his classmates had asked about the difference between a child werewolf and an adult werewolf, and this had brought up memories he hadn’t thought about in years. Memories of loneliness, of his parents telling him that he was different than the other kids, that he could never, under any circumstance, tell anyone his secret. Old fantasies of a life without lycanthropy, wishing he could be cured every year on his birthday as he blew out the candles, the moment he realised that his friends knew about his condition and that they still wanted to be his friends, ... All these memories went through his mind that lesson. <br/>By the time it was over, he was emotionally exhausted. It was the last lesson of the day, so he got up and left without a word to the others. <br/>It was so unfair, so very unfair that he’d had to go through that, that he still had to go through it every month for the rest of his life. In an abandoned classroom, he hit the walls, again and again and again, with every punch forcing the memories to get out, to stop crowding his brain, to stop overwhelming him. Eventually, he sank to the floor, his hands bleeding but his brain finally feeling back to normal. He went back to his dorm, where the others silently hugged him before dragging him to the hospital wing.</p>
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